Probably drawn by his Rand Paul for Senate t-shirt, I approached Profitt and started asking him general questions. He told me that with Paul "The true change is coming." I found out that he was the campaign’s Bourbon County Coordinator. I asked what the most important issues were to him in this election. He listed the economy, foreign policy, and Constitutional issues. "The fact that they've ignored the Constitution on the federal level so much really bothers me," he told me. And he said that he wanted to start reforming the local parties so primaries could produce a conservative Democrat and a conservative Republican, producing win-win general elections for conservatives.

In total, I probably talked to Profitt for less than 10 minutes. My overall impression of him was of a tough but approachable conservative, someone working hard and looking forward to victory. In other words, he seemed like a basically normal political person. He did not strike me as someone who would stomp on the shoulder/head/neck of a 23-year-old woman and then ask her to apologize.

But this is what happens when we coarsen our attitudes in a fever of rhetoric and dehumanize the other side. Profitt’s actions and lack of contrition for them are saddening, disturbin, and deeply unhealthy for our political process. And we should say so, on all sides of the political spectrum.